Throughout the positional coverage on Baseball Prospectus, the Tale of the Tape feature has pitted two closely ranked players in a head-to-head brawl to see which is superior. We’ve offered some big-league, as well as minor-league, bouts. This will be the latter variety, as we compare Raimel Tapia vs. Nomar Mazara to see which one should be valued higher (in a vacuum) in standard dynasty leagues.

Which one of these future AL Central shortstops should you choose for the long haul?

If you’ve been following the fantasy team’s positional coverage, you’re well aware of what we do in this space. For those new to the series, however, the Tale of the Tape is a feature in which we pluck two closely rated players and place them in a head-to-head matchup to see which one is superior. We’ve done both big-league and prospect versions, but today we’re treating you to a minor-league clash between a couple prized shortstop prospects: Francisco Lindor and Tim Anderson.

Although the league-average second baseman only hit .250/.307/.364 in 2014, the position was rather deep. Seven second basemen finished the season as top-50 fantasy players in ESPN leagues, including a few breakout stars such as Josh Harrison, Dee Gordon, and Brian Dozier. Ultimately, it proved to be a crazy season in which cheap options on draft day provided some of the best value—as five of the top-10 second baseman were, on average, drafted outside the top 15.